Details

The monument includes two adjacent bowl barrows set on the crest of a steep
west-facing escarpment on Roundway Hill. The northern barrow mound is 18m in
diameter and stands to a height of 1.5m. The southern mound is 13m across
and 0.4m high. Both of the barrow mounds are surrounded by ditches from
which material was quarried during construction of the monument. These are
no longer visible at ground level but survive as buried features c.3m wide.
The bench set on the northern barrow mound, and the nature trail post close
by are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments
dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most
examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as
earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple
burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often
acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar,
although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form
and a diversity of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl
barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring
across most of lowland Britain. Often occupying prominent locations, they are
a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable
variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important
information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early
prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period
and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of
protection.

There is no evidence for formal excavation of the Roundway Hill
Covert site and, despite afforestation in the area of the monument, much of
it remains intact and has significant potential for the recovery of
archaeological remains, including the ditches and the old ground surface.

Source: Historic England